Thomas
only gets 15 years for Mardi Gras killing - Wartnik justifiesJerell
Thomas was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for his violent
rampage that killed 20-year-old Kristopher
Kime at last year's Mardi Gras celebration. King County Superior
Court Judge Anthony Wartnik said Thomas, now 18, has "a
great deal of good within him" but has trouble controlling his anger."Certainly
Jerell Thomas' acts appear to be monstrous
in nature," Wartnik said. "But that doesn't appear
to indicate that he is a monster in his psychological makeup." Kime's family had asked for "the maximum sentence."
His mother, clutching a tiny urn of
her son's ashes, was crushed that he did not receive at least
the 20 years that King County prosecutors had recommended. He had faced
a standard sentence of 14 to 22 years. "That's not what Kris deserved,"
Kim Kime-Parks said. - (Patriot) -
(NNN-Seattle-black-riots)

Negro
sentenced to three years for Mardi Gras attacks
SEATTLE - A man photographed wearing brass knuckles during the
downtown Mardi Gras riots was sentenced Friday to three years in prison.
Aaron Slaughter, 19, pleaded guilty in September to second-degree
assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of fourth-degree assault and
one count of felony rioting. King County prosecutors said Slaughter roamed
through Pioneer Square and attacked people at random as Mardi Gras celebrations
last February disintegrated into a riot. More than 70 people were hurt
in the violence. One young man was killed. -
(reader link)

Black
convicted in savage Mardi Gras murder of WhiteA jury Wednesday convicted Jerell Thomas of second-degree
murder in the death of Kristopher Kime
during a rowdy Mardi Gras celebration in Seattle in February. Thomas used
his hands to show "the anger and rage that seethed within him,"
Deputy Prosecutor Andrea Vitalich told jurors Tuesday. He bashed two
men with a skateboard, then punched Kime "over and over again, until
he had literally driven his head into the pavement." NNN-Seattle-riots- (VNN link)

Seattle
black riots: Murdered Kime's friend recalls Mardi Gras terror
She tearfully recounts how she found him bloodied on ground The
crowd was getting too rowdy. Michelle
Breasaw and her clan of longtime pals saw groups of people
ganging up on helpless individuals. One
woman was being dragged by her hair as another woman kicked her. 17-year-old (black) Jerell Thomas stands trial for second-degree
murder.

Murder
trial opens in death of man in Mardi Gras attack a jury must decide whether Thomas is to blame for the massive
head injuries that caused Kristopher
Kime's death. He also faces two assault charges for allegedly
beating two other young men with a skateboard as he roamed the crowded
Pioneer Square streets early Feb. 28. Kristopher
Kime fell to the ground after Thomas -- captured on videotape
by television news cameras -- hit him from behind.

'Poster
boy' for violence resists roleBy
Nicole Brodeur Seattle Times staff columnist Let your better judgment slide, and
sure enough, Aaron "Slaughter" slips nicely into
white society's cliché of the Angry Black Male. He is big,
he is dark, he becomes menacing just by virtue of standing up. He
works at a car wash, drives a Cadillac, lives with his mother. (reader)

Khalid Adams, 17, was charged with fourth-degree assault for
allegedly joining a group of young men who were kicking
a man on the ground.

Maleng said Friday that police referred the assault charge to prosecutors
as a possible hate crime after Adams told a detective that the "most
likely" reason he kicked the man was because he was white.

He said Adams' statement was not sufficient reason to prosecute him
for a hate crime. Prosecutors would have had to show that he joined
the melee intending to target a white victim. Instead, Maleng said,
it appeared Adams just became caught up in the violence.

Adams also was charged with first-degree robbery in a separate
incident in which a man was robbed of $100 during the alcohol-fueled
melee in Pioneer Square on Feb. 27. Charged with him in that robbery
were Calvin E. Williams, 20, and Demarr L. Goldsmith, 18.

In addition, Adams and Williams had been charged with having forced
sexual contact with a woman during the riots, but those charges
have since been dismissed because the victim said she was unsure who
had attacked her, Maleng said.

Help
Bust Mardi Gras Thugs: SEATTLE - Do any of these people look familiar?Police
have released dozens of photos from the Mardi Gras riots in Pioneer
Square on Feb. 27 in the hopes that the public can help identify these
people and help bring them to justice. If you have any information
on who these people are, or where they might be located, please call
the Seattle Police Mardi Gras tip line at: (206) 233-3896. Please
give them the number located on the photo that you're referring to.
(Reader link)

Before the attacks that have since led many in the Seattle area to
wonder about hate-crime policies, Fat Tuesday was a peaceful party
that drew thousands of people. Are blacks ever prosecuted for hate crimes?

Readers and callers have been asking this question in one form
or another since Fat Tuesday. Some ask it rhetorically, angry at
what they perceive as a politically correct double standard. Others
ask with genuine curiosity.

More than a month after Mardi Gras rocked the city, Seattle police
this week asked prosecutors to consider a hate-crime charge against
one black teen, Khalid Adams, who is accused of beating up and
robbing whites during the Mardi Gras celebration. Adams told investigators
he believed he was in the middle
of a "racial war."

Seattle police yesterday asked the King County prosecutor to consider
a hate-crime charge against one of the young black men accused
of Mardi Gras violence, saying the teen believed the attacks in Pioneer
Square were a battle in a "racial war."

Khalid Adams, 17, is already in jail, charged as an adult
in what prosecutors say was an unchecked rampage against Fat Tuesday
revelers. But police now have asked that prosecutors add the charge
of malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime statute.

Adams, who is in the King County Jail, this week pleaded not guilty
to first-degree robbery and indecent liberties, both felonies.
Court papers say he and other young men beat up a man and stole his
wallet amid the frenzy and attacked
a woman, pulling off her clothes and groping her. Police
say Adams is also tied to other attacks but is not linked to the fatal
assault on Kristopher Kime, the one person killed that
night.

After Adams was arrested, he explained his motives to detectives,
police said. He said he had been drinking in a Pioneer Square bar
-- despite his age -- and had emerged into an already-violent crowd.
According to the police report to prosecutors, Adams attacked people
because someone hit him, and he and his friends thought the riots
were a "racial war."

Racial tension surrounding the Fat Tuesday celebration has been building
since police said most suspects in the violence are black. African-American
leaders have said fallout from the event stereotypes the entire black
community as criminals.

Interracial
Crime and Table 42 By Christopher Chantrill"IF YOU ARE LIKE ME, a libertarian conservative passionately
committed to finding the meaning of life, the universe and everything,
you are outraged by the racial violence that occurred in Seattle
on Fat Tuesday, and you get all riled up by articles like John
Perazzos "Interracial Crime: The Dirty Little Secret."
The rate of black-on-white crime, he writes, is ten times the rate
of white-on-black crime." (reader
link)

Diversity
Disaster: The Censored Truth About 'Fat Tuesday' Riots- by Sam FrancisThe
news unfit to print for the last couple of weeks has to do with black
violence against whites trying to celebrate "Fat Tuesday"
in cities all over the country. Known in French as "Mardi Gras"
in New Orleans, the day from now on might be better known as Bloody
rather than Fat.

Inter-Racial
Crime: The Dirty Little Secret- by John Perazzo
IN RESPONSE TO a white-on-black killing in Brooklyn a few years ago,
an infuriated Al Sharpton instantly took to the airwaves and proclaimed
that such attacks constituted "a national epidemic." (reader
link)

EAIF:
Seattle Murder of Kristopher Kime--Request for an investigation.[Note by Lou]
"Only this teenager is to be arrested for the murder of Kime.
It is not clear how many others kicked Kime beside the arrested "teenager".
We can only speculate why others will not be arrested if they were
part of the kicking.
Maybe the teenager did not use a racial epiteth but others involved
did.
Racial overtones, if any have not been mentioned. Why?"

Along with his letter, Sgt. Daniel Beste sent the young man's mother
a check for $200 -- "the approximate amount of overtime I
was paid by the taxpayers of the city to stand by while they were
beaten and your son killed."[Reader comments] "White victim + black
attackers = no police intervention"

Seattle
Black Riots: Racism is 'going both ways'
Civic leaders say violence must put spotlight on ethnic tensions Ethnic tensions in Seattle should be carefully explored in
light of information that shows most of the suspects identified so
far in Fat Tuesday crimes were black and reports that several vicious
attacks that night were tinged with racism. (reader
link)

Three-quarters of the more than 100 people identified so far as suspects
in crimes committed during the Fat Tuesday riot are black, Seattle
police sources say.

Many victims say some of the random beatings in Pioneer Square were
clearly tinged with racial hatred. And in at least two Mardi Gras
incidents under investigation, African American attackers were heard
yelling racial slurs at white victims, police said.

In another instance, a woman witnessing the beating of two white men
by a group of blacks heard one of the attackers say, "That's
what you stupid white people get."

DURING THE NOW INFAMOUS Rodney King incident, executives of the
ACLU proclaimed that the LAPD was racist, based on a video. "If
we had seen those pictures coming from South Africa, we would all
know what they meant," said ACLU executive director Ira Glasser
on the Phil Donahue Show.

However, a different standard has been applied to video images coming
out of Seattles Mardi Gras riot two weeks ago. Many show blacks
ganging up on white victims. But Seattle police are not even investigating
the possibility that anti-white hate crimes may have been committed.

On the night of February 27, gangs of roving youths rampaged through
partying crowds in the citys Pioneer Square. When it was over,
72 were injured, one dead and 21 arrested.

Rumors began circulating almost immediately via e-mail and Internet
message board that the disturbance had been racial  a case of
black marauders preying on white victims  and that police had
stood by and let it happen.

Man
arrested in slaying of four; police say stolen car led them to
19-year-old
"It's been a tough day," Kellett said. "Right on
the heels of Kris Kime's
death ... If you had a whole school of kids like Kris
Kime and Josie Peterson, you wouldn't ever experience
any problems." Kime, 20, was a former Evergreen student-athlete
who was killed during the Fat Tuesday violence in Seattle's Pioneer
Square.

Local News: Friday, March 02, 2001Man
killed at Mardi Gras was trying to help woman
Kristopher Kime's family and friends say he was murdered amid the
mayhem of Fat Tuesday. Detectives yesterday said they're getting closer
to catching the attackers, who they said may turn out to be some of
the same men responsible for dozens of assaults on partygoers at the
Fat Tuesday celebration.

Local News: Thursday, March 08, 2001
Victim's family angry at rushed police letter
When Kimberly Kime-Parks opened a letter Monday from the Seattle Police
Department, a part of her expected a few personal words of condolence
on the death of her son, Kris Kime, at a Mardi Gras melee in Pioneer
Square last week. The letter, which had Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske's
name on it, wasn't what she expected. "It seems very much like
a form letter," she said. "And they could have had the courtesy
to spell my son's name right."

Local News: Thursday, March 08, 2001
Frustrated police honor man slain on Fat Tuesday
Seattle police officers asked for and received permission to wear
their uniforms at the memorial of 20-year-old Kristopher Kime as a
way to quietly honor the man who died helping an injured woman in
Pioneer Square on Fat Tuesday. It was a symbolic gesture to convey
the officers' respect for Kime. But as the memorial service at Evergreen
High School near Burien drew to a close, one officer spoke up.

Local News: Tuesday, March 06, 2001
Learning
lessons of Fat Tuesday
As Seattle police officials seek the lessons learned by other cities
in the aftermath of violent Mardi Gras celebrations, they may confront
an uncomfortable fact. Police in Philadelphia, Fresno, Calif., and
Austin, Texas, waded into crowds of revelers to make arrests, even
when partygoers were shoulder-to-shoulder on the streets.

Black
Tuesday: Seattle's Mardi Gras celebrations
disintegrated into ugly racial brawls as the evening progressed.
Here, a group of black young men beats a white man early Wednesday morning
as Fat Tuesday celebrations came to a close. (reader
link)

"It wasn't really a race riot after all. It was just another
misogynist
attack on female victims by evil men.

But this time, the white men and the police were too tolerant of
deviant
and disgusting behaviour. And there I was thinking that we could never
have too much "tolerance" for deviant behaviour!

What's more, only one white man was prepared to get himself killed
for
women who hate him. What a disgrace.

But should sexual assault be the penalty for stupidity? Well it will
be,
whether it should or not. So all these tolerant, diversity loving,
Democrat voting, man hating feminists had better get used to it."

[Reader reports]
"Unfortunately the poll on racial motivation at Seattle station
KIRO came down
soon after I referred to it. I have asked the station for the results.
I called the Seattle Post-Intelligencer online Forum manager, a Mr.
Rosen,
who explained to me that the link to the Pioneer Square Violence forum
had
been removed since it had been taken over by White supremacists who
were
threatening minorities. This is not true."
- James C. Russell, Ph.D. jcrussell5@yahoo.com

On Feb. 27, a crowd of 4,000 converged - some spilling out of bars,
some bringing their own drinks to party in the street - to celebrate
the end of Mardi Gras. As Fat Tuesday wore on, drinking and displays
of nudity erupted into bursts of savagery.

By the time the streets were cleared, one man was fatally injured,
71 people were injured, and property damage was estimated at $80,000.

Citizens were outraged - at the bars who sponsored the event, at
the police who stood by while beatings went unchecked, at the youths
who got caught up in brutal mob behavior.

And that's roughly where agreement ends about what happened in Pioneer
Square that night - and why.

While police, city officials and community leaders try to discover
the spark that ignited so much rage, many of those who watched the
events from afar - on television or through newspaper accounts - quickly
made up their minds.

Fat Tuesday, they concluded, was black-on-white violence.

"I saw young black males hitting innocent bystanders,"
said Andrew Lehtinen, 24, a welder from Seattle. He was in New Orleans
for Mardi Gras this year. He followed news of the Seattle street brawls
on CNN and newspaper Web sites.

"I didn't see any whites beating up blacks - or women, for that
matter," he said. Lehtinen is white.

"I saw the stuff on TV and it was alarming - this sort of gratuitous
violence," said Henry McGee, Jr., 69, a Seattle University law
professor.

"There were clearly blacks assaulting whites. I didn't see any
pictures of blacks assaulting blacks," McGee continued. "It's
hard to say whether their motivations had to do with race. I think
the least one can say is that unless the blacks were acting in self-defense
-- and that doesn't come off in the tapes - my guess is there may
well have been a racial dimension to it.

"In any case, it will be perceived as racial." McGee is
black.

On radio talk shows, in chat rooms and in calls, e-mails and letters
to newspapers, the public outcry about Mardi Gras has been tinged
with race, and with accusations that the police and media have ducked
a volatile truth.

"The instigators of these violent acts were black gang-bangers
out to hurt white people," spouted an e-mail from a man calling
himself Wild Bill. "Surely had a gang of white guys beaten up
on a bunch of blacks and killed one ... the coverage would have been
focused on race."

Police and city officials have insisted they can't identify a racial
motive to the Fat Tuesday brawls. Nor have police arrested suspects
in the beating death of Kristopher Kime, 20, of Auburn, who was beaten
to death as he tried to help a woman who had been knocked to the pavement.
Kime was white.

But police have said there was a roving group of young black men
and women who attacked many white partygoers in the crowd. And witnesses
said the man who hit Kime from behind was black.

Public rumblings have accused the police and media of political correctness
- the former when it failed to wade into the crowd, the latter when
it failed to wade into the race issue - for fear of offending the
black community.

Look how quickly the black community, he said, claimed racial bias behind
last April's police shooting of David John Walker, a mentally ill African
American, after he shoplifted from a Queen Anne grocery. (more...